The Fallacy of Faith
by Cheese92
Summary: My version of Hyrule's ancient history. Rated M for extreme violence, some profanity, and themes that many might not find suitable. Ninth chapter is now up.
1. Prologue

This is a story by me, an aspiring writer who has no association with the Zelda series whatsoever besides being a big fan. Anyway, I'm currently writing some other stuff, along with working my butt off as a senior in high school, so I may not even be able to finish this story--but it's one that I've been wanting to write for a long time, because I feel that there's a lot of potential. Therefore, I'm going to do my best to carry this story through to the end, and update it as frequently as I can. That may mean that updates might not come as frequently as you want them to, but stick with me.

All that aside, here is some background information. This is a fanfic that is based off of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It has many familiar settings from that game, but few of the familiar characters. It may be difficult for you to even find Link in this one--but I might give him a cameo appearance sometime later, so be looking for him anyway. The reason that so few of these characters appear is because I am writing the HISTORY of Hyrule as I believe it happened. I do not take credit for all the ideas present in this story, however; the plot is built from a compilation of theories and analyses of the dungeons in the game. The discussion that gave birth to these theories took place on the Ocarina of Time board on . I don't care to name all the people that contributed, but I give credit to every one of them for making this happen. Gracias, thank you, and arigato. Of course, I've also taken many of my own liberties and worked outside of those theories as well, trying to create a story that I hope will be an interesting read.

The last thing: If you read, I would appreciate a review. Like I said, I have many things that I'm doing outside of writing this story. If nobody's reading it, I'll stop writing it, because even though I enjoy it, I am currently working on other works that I enjoy writing just as much and have intentions of getting published (After much, much, much revision). I don't care what you say in the review--it can be one or two sentences, but just let me know that you're there, and I'll keep the fun going.

So, without further ado...the story! Since this is the prologue, it's pretty short. Hopefully the chapters will get longer as time goes by.

"Look, Sister," said the witch, Kotake. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yes, Sister," said the witch, Koume.

The two witches stood on a high cliff, watching the sun set over Hyrule Field. "Yes, the fire in the sky is the most beautiful of nature's creations," continued Koume. "The horizon is engulfed in the colors of death and war. So soon shall Hyrule be painted in the very same way."

"Destruction! Chaos!" roared Kotake. "Hail the dawn of a new age that shall soon be upon us!"

The two cackled with laughter as the red sky faded into black. And when the night was dark so they could not be seen, they set off the cliff on their broomsticks and descended towards the field. Their target was Lon Lon Ranch. They made towards it silently, the cold wind billowing their black capes behind them.

The ranch stood like a neglected child, alone in the center of the vast field. It was a small and humble place where there lived a man named Mario—the owner of the ranch—and his assistant, Luigi.

"Burn," said Kotake.

"Burn," said Koume.

They shook their staves and muttered incantations. A ball of fire formed in the air. When it grew to a substantial size, they released it, and it struck the chicken coop. The air was filled with the squawks of startled chickens as their shelter erupted in flames. The flames spread to the shed and the stables. Their scorching tongues possessed everything they touched, making the ranch their own.

Mario and Luigi ran out of the main house together and then stopped, right there in the doorway, their mouths agape at what they saw; but Mario quickly recovered from the shock, and went to get water. Nary a stride he took before he was pierced through the heart by a needle, and retired to the dirt as blood spilled in a puddle around him. Luigi screamed as he saw his master such, and ran for the gate. But he felt something hit him, and then there was only blackness.

The next day, the people in Kakariko Village beheld a grotesque and terrible sight: Tied to the blades of the windmill, two bodies desecrated beyond recognition. Their faces were caked with blood, their bodies turned inside out, organs removed and wrapped around their arms like snakes. They had each been neutered, and seared into the flesh on their groins was a pattern of three triangles arranged in a pyramid: the Triforce, the symbol of peace and tranquility in Hyrule. The horrible way in which these two had been killed gave a simple message: someone wanted to bring the peace to an end.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One: The Shiekah

"In the beginning, the concept of religion was created because humanity (Note: The term humanity as it will be used in this work does not refer only to humans. It is a term that encompasses all of Hyrule's races, from the Hylians to the Gorons and others.) needed a unifying agent. Throughout history, it has been proven that the most effective method of making peace is to bring everyone together under a common belief. In the darkest hour of our history, when the wars between tribes became so violent that humanity faced danger of extinction, we turned towards the gods in hopes of an answer to our problems.

It has also been proven that is in the times of most turmoil that people are brought the closest together. When humanity turned towards the gods, they answered by creating conformity, bringing all creatures on the earth together beneath their affinity in the belief and worship of greater beings.

Slowly, Hyrule entered an era of peace. The receding violence was directly proportional to a disappearance of religion. Humanity still _believed _in gods, but no longer worshiped them, nor turned to them in times of need.

Of course, there are those who still embrace religion; they can be picked out among society by the way they tend to group together in communities. One such community holds a great significance in the shaping of Hyrule's recent history. It was composed of only the most zealous worshipers, those that held to their beliefs with such fervor that they sought to force conversion on the "non-believers", those that had moved on from religion into more humble values.

They turned to violence in order to do so, and thus they became known as the Shiekah—a band of religious fanatics that pillaged villages and set fires in the fields until the Hylian army was dispatched to quell their uprising. The attack was successful. Most members of the group were caught and imprisoned. A minor few escaped, and they are still at large. Although they have not made a move since their defeat, they are considered among the top ten threats to the public and are still to this day—twelve years after the incident—hunted by the military and bounty hunters seeking after the twelve million rupee reward for their capture."

--Excerpt from "The History of Religion" by Crispin Briar

"The recent incident in Kakariko disturbs me, Frederick," said King Oswald.

"It is indeed a disturbing matter, Your Highness," said Frederick, the king's adviser, as he paced back and forth across the carpet of the throne room. "Two men were found dead, and the investigation team has thus far been unable to find any evidence at the scene. It's the perfect crime—the murderer left no trace of themselves that we can find.

Of course, we can still narrow it down. There is one thing we have no doubt of: This wasn't just your average murder. Nobody killed those men over a card game dispute. They were _taken apart, _Your Highness. Their innards were removed and wrapped around their arms, and they…"

"I don't want to hear any more of that," said King Oswald.

"Right," said Frederick. "But the point I mean to make is that this is a crime that was performed with _passion. _Whoever killed those men had a reason for doing so that goes far beyond a fistfight in the bar or a broken promise. They're rare, but in the past we have come across bodies mutilated in ways quite similar to those of Mario and Luigi. Whenever we catch the people responsible and interrogate them, they tell us stories of getting revenge; about the sort of things that can cause a man to go crazy and act on an impulse, doing something that he later regrets. But even fury of that level does not explain _this. _These men were put on display, for everyone to see! Whoever killed them was trying to make a _statement!_"

"They're threatening us!" exclaimed King Oswald.

"Precisely! Whoever did this isn't planning to stop after killing those two. The very reason they were put on display was to tell us that this was only the _beginning! _The type of rage I described earlier, the sort that causes a man to act on impulse, does not come close to matching with this. Whoever did this is someone who harbors hatred for the entire Hylian race!"

"Do you have any suspicions of who is behind this?"

"My intuition points me towards a certain group," said Frederick. "The Shiekah."


	3. Chapter 2

You know how I said updates would probably be really slow? Well, I just said that because I'm really lazy about my writing. But since I like writing this story so much, updates may come faster than even I expected them to. That is, until I get some major homework coming up in the next week. So enjoy, here's a chapter that's longer than the first two. I hope you find it to be very riveting. Who's that guy in the cloak who meets with Ishmael? Hmm...mysterious...

Chapter Two: The False Goddesses

There were few alive that knew of the temple residing deep within the desert. To reach it required crossing a river of quicksand and traversing sandstorms in the Haunted Wasteland, a deadly and desolate place where a single misplaced step would lead to death. The Gerudo thieves, who lived in the Gerudo Valley at the desert's edge, knew of its existence; it had been built by their ancestors as a shrine of worship to the gods. In those ancient days there had been a path that led from the valley to the temple, and it was easily accessible. But two hundred years previously, an earthquake—one which had caused hills to rise in the fields and entire towns to be razed in a matter of minutes—had shifted the landscape and made the desert all but impassable. No Gerudo had traveled there for centuries, and only knew of the temple's existence from historical journals and documents.

There was, however, another group that knew of the temple's existence; and that was the Shiekah. The ancestors of the Shiekah were men and women who went into the desert to become closer to the gods. They believed that they could communicate with these greater beings by becoming one with nature; and that the best way to understand nature was to live in the most hazardous of environments—the desert. The Gerudo forbade all but themselves to enter the desert through the path to the temple, and so the ancestors of the Shiekah found another way; it was by a hidden path through the snowy mountains north of Hyrule Castle that they entered those wastelands.

When the earthquake blocked the main path to the temple, that hidden passage through the mountains remained untouched. The Shiekah used it to travel to the temple, and made its vast rooms and twisting corridors their hidden base of operations. When the Shiekah were confronted and defeated by the Hylian army, those that escaped made their way north, through the mountains and back to the desert. Twelve years passed, and they stayed there in hiding; but now, they were planning once again to make a move. The problem they now faced was that apparently, someone else had already made it for them.

In the center room of the temple, two men met beneath a giant statue of a snake with a woman's face. One of them was named Ishmael. He was bald and muscular. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, his entire body was covered in tattoos: religious symbols. The other man was dressed in a black cloak that concealed his appearance. Ishmael neither knew his name nor had ever seen his face, but the man was a valuable source of information. He had never been wrong about anything, and had never done anything for Ishmael to suspect that he harbored nothing but the strongest loyalty to the Shiekah. This was a man that could be trusted, Ishmael believed.

"That is a severe problem," said Ishmael. "It's just two weeks now before we're planning to make our move, and now we're the top suspects for something we didn't even play a part in. Someone is obviously trying to frame us."

"And for what reason do you think they would do that?" asked the man.

"I couldn't possibly know," said Ishmael. "But it's going to make things that much more difficult for us. Since everyone thinks that we're responsible for killing those two ranchers, they'll be _expecting _another attack! It seems like we may need to shift our plans a little bit, but now that it's already this late, that's certainly not ideal for us."

"Do you think that was what they meant to do?" suggested the man. "Try to ruin the plan, I mean. Someone might have known about it before hand."

"That is a possibility," said Ishmael. "And if such is the case, then we need to do something. Tomorrow I'm going to administer a test of truth. If there's a rat among us, I'll flush him into the daylight and make sure he's tortured and killed."

Suddenly the main door burst open. Ishmael leapt up in surprise, not so much at the fact that someone had the nerve to enter on them while they were having a private meeting, but because of the fact that a sealed door made of solid steel and weighing in at two and a half tons had just been blown clear out of the wall and sent flying across the room. He stared at it in shock and then turned towards the door, ready to face whatever was about to enter.

For a moment, there was silence. Then an officer of the Shiekah appeared. He stumbled through the doorway, clutching a wound on his chest. "Master," he moaned. "They…forced their way in. We…could do nothing to stop them."

Ishmael suddenly felt himself overwhelmed with a sense of fear like nothing he had ever felt before. What had just blown down that door and killed one of his men? How many others had been killed? Reaching over his shoulder, he removed from its sheath a twelve-foot long sword made of dragon bone, sharpened to excruciating precision. He assumed a stance and continued to stare at the door as little beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Even in that moment of fear, however, he could not help but notice that the cloaked man had merely moved to the back wall of the room and sat down. He did not appear to exhibit any emotions about the situation.

A pair of women entered the room. They were old, with gray hair, wrinkles, and sickly yellow teeth. They wore black robes and they rode upon broomsticks.

"Stand still or we will not hesitate to kill you!" said Koume.

"And put away that toy!" said Kotake.

Ishmael sheathed the sword, his intuition telling him that it wasn't a bluff.

"You really should thank us, you know," said Koume.

"We did some work for you," said Kotake.

"You…" said Ishmael. "You killed those men! Mario and Luigi!"

"Of course we did," said Kotake. "And you've been blamed for it."

"This ruins our plans!" exclaimed Ishmael.

"You're very wrong," said Koume. "We want to help you to succeed more than anything."

"What do you mean by that?"

"We're going to take over from now on," said Kotake. "You are no longer the leader of this establishment. _We _are. And from this moment on, you're going to do everything according to _our _plans."

"You…"

"Don't try anything," said Koume. "We're not giving you a choice in the matter. If you want to object, we will kill every last one of you and carry on these plans by ourselves. In fact, I'm going to put it bluntly—all of you little useless people are nothing more than pawns to us. We can and we will throw you away at any possible moment if we see fit. If you want to delay that happening to you, then you'll do as we say, to the very last word. Is that understood?"

"Who are you?" asked Ishmael. "You use very powerful magic. I didn't know that there was anyone alive these days that knows any of the old magic, the kind that was used for fighting purposes in the ancient wars. It was banned, the practice of it forbidden. Now, magic is only used in alchemy, for…"

"Don't give us a history lesson!" scolded Kotake. "You think we don't already know all of that? We were alive during the old wars!"

"You are old," said Ishmael. "But you cannot be that old. Only the goddesses can be that old."

"We are the goddesses," said Koume.

"I am Din," said Kotake.

"And I am Nayru," said Koume.

"BLASPHEMERS!" roared Ishmael. "HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH THINGS BEFORE A MAN LIKE ME! I'LL HAVE YOU KILLED!"

He tried to move, but found that he could not. There was a spell cast upon him.

"I told you not to make a move," said Koume. "If you shout out like that again, we will kill you. Now allow me to tell you once more: We are the goddesses Din and Nayru. That is what you are to believe, and if you deviate from that belief, we will not hesitate to kill you. Remember this."

"Remember it," said Kotake.

"You are indeed powerful," said Ishmael. "More powerful than I believed was possible of any living being. If you claim yourselves to be gods, then prove it to us. Gather the Shiekah outside the temple and give us a demonstration of your complete power."

"It shall be done," said Koume.

Beneath the hot sun, twenty or so men and women—the last of the Shiekah—gathered outside the temple. The two witches stood high above them on a balcony.

"How easy it is to make people believe in lies," said Kotake.

"Let us begin," said Koume.

They huddled together and muttered incantations. They had gathered before them in a bucket dirt and water. Slowly, they poured its contents into a ring of stones. Moving their hands, they made a miniature tornado of swirling air above the mixture. Then, gently, they lit it all aflame.

With this simple mixture of the four natural elements, they could take control of nature for a short time. Together, they stood up, still muttering incantations. Then they stopped. The spell was complete. "LET IT RAIN!" bellowed Kotake. And as she moved her hands, rain clouds formed in the sky above the desert and water roared down upon the sands.

"LET THE WIND BLOW!" bellowed Koume. And as she moved her hands, a fierce wind blew through the desert, blowing stinging sand into the congregation's eyes.

"And now for the finale," said Kotake.

The two of them took each other's hands. Slowly, they channeled their body's energy together. Then, with a brilliant flash of light, they merged into a single being: Twinrova. The audience below beheld this transformation in silent wonder.

"BEHOLD!" bellowed Twinrova. "I AM THE GODDESS FARORE! WATCH AS I DEMONSTRATE MY POWER!"

Twinrova held her hands to the sky. From one hand she produced a freezing air; from the other, a roaring pillar of flame. The two opposing forces clashed together. The flames began to swirl in the air like a great vortex above the temple, and many odd phenomena began to occur: the temperature changed from hot to cold and hot again in an instant; scorching winds became accompanied by hailstorms. Then it all died down, leaving not a trace of what had just occurred.

Ishmael was speechless for several seconds thereafter. Then, slowly, he stepped forward and bowed low to the ground. "All hail the goddesses!" he shouted. "All hail the goddesses!" the crowd repeated. They shouted it again and again until it became etched in time: few would forget that day; for they truly believed that the goddesses had finally appeared before them in the flesh, and that their day of glory they had so long been planning was not too far ahead of them.


	4. Chapter 3

This chapter is mostly for comic relief, although I'm sure you could figure that out yourself. I'm sure you noticed in the prologue how I made a slight joke about an Easter egg that's found in Ocarina of Time. You know if you go to the ranch and look at Talon and Ingo, they bare a slight resemblance to Mario and Luigi. Well, my historic explanation for that is that their ancestors were _the _Mario and Luigi. May they rest in peace--yet in our hearts, they will live on forever. Especially since they get their own video game series. How do the owners of a small ranch end up becoming the stars of a popular video game franchise? Well, that's the little story of this chapter. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it's comic enough to give you relief. No, not _that _kind of relief. Let us begin!

"Hehe," said the guard. "This is going to be fun."

"I really don't think we should do it," said the other.

There were two guards standing in the castle courtyard, in the small garden that you could look out at from the throne room. They weren't allowed to be there, and they certainly weren't allowed to do what they were about to do—that was, fire a rock through one of the three windows (There was one in the throne room, and two looking out from the hallways on either side. They intended to shatter the window to the left of where they were standing and then run away as quickly as they could.).

"Here goes," said the first guard. He pulled back on the band and with a whoosh of air he let the rock fly. It struck right on the target and the window shattered, splattering glass across the floor like water droplets.

"Hey! Quit messing around!" someone shouted. Then a man appeared in the broken window frame and threw a bomb at them (I guess this is something that runs in the family.). "HOLY SHIT!" screamed the one that had fired the rock. "RUN!" They ran, and the bomb exploded behind them, searing the grass and flowers in its blast radius.

Inside, a painter placed down his brush and looked with agitation out the window—the one opposite the other which had just been shattered. "What is going on out there?" he asked. "An artist needs complete concentration in order to work. Someone ought to…"

"I'm not paying you to talk," said Princess Zelda. She was the very first in a long line of girls born to the royal family that would bear that name. "Is that portrait almost finished?"

"You cannot rush art," said the artist.

"Let me see it," said Zelda. She stood up and walked across the room. "No! Don't move! I told you to stay in that same position…"

"This isn't even a picture of me," said Zelda.

The artist looked at his painting. "You're right," he said. "How puzzling."

"What do you mean, it's puzzling? You're the one who painted it! Hey, aren't those the two guys that own the ranch? Well, _owned _the ranch, I should say. Mario and Luigi, right?"

"It does bare a striking resemblance to them," said the artist.

"I told you to stop acting like you don't even know what you painted. It looks EXACTLY like them, right down to the green and red clothing that they always wore. But…what's this dinosaur thing that's standing over Mario's left shoulder?"

"I believe that is called a Yoshi," said the artist.

"You really are on crack, aren't you," said Zelda. "Hey, there I am! In the corner!"

"That DOES look like you," said the artist. "But she looks more like…a Princess Peach. Yes, that's what I'll call her. Princess Peach."

"Princess Peach? So then I'm not in this picture at all?"

"I'm afraid not," said the artist. "I'm sorry."

"But I specifically TOLD you to paint ME! These all look like characters out of a video game series, or something!"

"Hold on," said the artist. "You're absolutely right about that."

He picked up a phone on the wall and dialed a number.

"Hello?" asked a Japanese voice.

"Guess what, Miyamoto," said the artist. "You're going to love this new idea I just came up with."

While the artist was talking on the phone, Zelda walked over to the wall and hung up the picture. If you stood at the right place in the courtyard and turned to your right, you could see it hanging there. And there it remained for a very, very long time, as we all know.


	5. Chapter 4

There are fewer and fewer reviews of my masterpiece as time goes on, despite that the Reader Traffic feature seems to suggest that people are reading it. If you don't mind, I'll restate what I said in the beginning: I would greatly appreciate reviews for my story. From what Reader Traffic is showing, I am getting about the desired number of people reading this story; but that can be inaccurate information, since some people may just look at the first chapter and turn away. If you read it and you find that you like it and want to read through all the chapters, I will say it again: a short review would be appreciated. Thank you.

Chapter Four: How to Establish Conformity, Second Edition (More comic relief for the title of the chapter--but don't expect to find any coming up in the chapter itself.)

The attacks from the Shiekah became more and more frequent. Within a week, the situation reached the same level of severity as twelve years previously, when the Shiekah made their first attack. They were ruthless as ever in their assaults. Formerly, it had been safe to travel on foot in the field, and many had done so; but now, travelers were disappearing, and their bodies would be found hanging from trees, nailed to walls, tied to stakes or anything of that sort of nature, and always in places where everyone could see them. It got so bad that foot travel from one village to another was banned.

People were required to travel in a caravan anywhere and everywhere they went. It didn't matter how close a place was to where you lived; if you wanted to walk the one quarter of a mile from Kakariko Village to the Hyrule Castle Town market, you went on the caravan. It was _the _caravan, because there was only one of them. It was a large covered wagon that went on a single trip every day. The trip started at Thorton, a village residing in the mountains to the north of Hyrule Castle (I speak of mountains that are not present in Ocarina of Time; I have decided to add these mountains because the Hyrule in Ocarina of Time is a very small amount of land to work with. In fantasy, I like to set my stories in vast worlds that span thousands of miles; I can't do that with Ocarina of Time, but I _have _taken the liberty of adding a mountain range to the north that contains, among other things, the village of Thorton.), from there travelled south to the Hyrule market, then west to the desert and to Lake Hylia, then southeast to the Kokiri Forest, then north the area of Zora's River, and finally to Kakariko, again to the market, back around through Lake Hylia, the forest, and the river area yet another time, and finally back up north through the mountains to Thorton. It stayed in Thorton during the night, and set out in the mornings.

The caravan was at all times accompanied by twenty armed guards on horseback. The cost involved in paying the guards was the main reason that there was only one caravan. But it was a horrible inconvenience for everyone, as most any commodity that anyone was looking for was sold in the market and _only _in the market, and so if you needed to do the daily shopping, you had to wait for the scheduled trip to go there.

Attacks on the villages themselves became more and more frequent, as well. Security was increased drastically and everyone went to sleep with their doors locked. Nobody had ever locked their door during peaceful times; but these weren't peaceful times, and the need for locks was proven time and time again by break-ins. It wasn't just the Shiekah. People that lost their homes in village raids turned to desperation. Climbing through shattered windows, they crept across squeaking floorboards to stashes of treasure wherever they hid. People started hiding their treasures, too. Anything valuable was at stake; including lives. Some of them were so desperate they would kill.

It was chaos across Hyrule. And then, when they needed it the most, help came.

It came as two women; they were old, but they knew magic. Nobody knew magic in those days. And so who were these women? They claimed to be immortal, to have lived when magic was still taught and still practiced. Their immense knowledge in it, spreading even to the godly ability to control the weather, seemed to suggest that they could not be lying; they could only have learned magic like _that _from one of the wizards, the long-lost masters of the lost art. And where had these women come from? There was no record of them in history; it was as though they had only just now come into existence, suddenly born from a black void into Hyrule as an answer to the people from the goddesses. Was that what they were? An answer from the goddesses to Hyrule's plea for help?

Or were they the goddesses themselves?

Nobody knew.

In the desert temple, Koume and Kotake met with Ishmael.

"I do not like…" started Ishmael, when they hovered before him on their broomsticks in the central chamber.

"Stop right there," said Koume. "What is this "not liking" that you speak of? When did we give you permission to object to anything that we have ever done? I know what you are about to ask, and I have two answers; the one I will give depends on how you word the question. Now, your second chance!"

"I do not understand, My Ladies, why you…why you have formed this connection with our enemies. Why do you preach to them, and present yourselves as their saviors? Please, impart thy wisdom to me, so that I may know."

His eyes wandered slightly to the left, where the cloaked man stood at the flank of the two witches. There was the man that had been his most trusted spy; he had defined the Shiekan intelligence network and had never failed to deliver information that was anything less than the absolute truth. But suddenly, and without hesitation, he had turned away from Ishmael to stand at the side of the witches. Ishmael remembered how he had remained absolutely calm in the moment that the witches blew open the door. He had sat down in the corner, crossed his arms, and remained utterly silent throughout the conversation that ensued. _He was loyal to them from the beginning. _That much had become obvious. Ishmael never saw him except during these meetings; he was always with the witches, wherever they went. The bigger question was: _Why does he follow them?_

"That was fair enough," said Kotake. "Our answer? It is really quite simple. Hyrule contains several thousand inhabitants. Do you truly believe that you can force conversion on such a large population with mindless repetition of brutality? No! The process of establishing conformity starts with seduction; first you give them cause to believe in you, and then you turn against them. This is how dictators come into power, and it is the most effective method of success for what we are trying to achieve."

"Dictators," said Ishmael. "In the beginning, during the tribal wars, Hyrule had no discernable government; when chaos gave way to order, it became a patriarchy beneath King Philip I. Since then, it has remained a patriarchal society, deviating from that system only once—when the Mad King Vrog forced his way into power, indeed in the very way you described. For one week, Hyrule was a totalitarian state. But at the end of that week, the king's army raided the castle and he was assassinated. That could hardly have been called a true a dictatorship, and I think it stands out as a reason why…"

"Shut up!" roared Koume. "Didn't we tell you not to spout history lessons at us? Despite whatever arguments you make, the fact remains that Vrog's tactics were effective; this is a formula that is proven to work."

"He was in power for only one week!" objected Ishmael.

Suddenly he felt himself lifted from his feet, and he was thrown like a limp rag against the wall. He felt a painful jolt in his spine as he struck the sandstone. And then he stayed there, stuck to the wall as though glued to it. He was unable to move and unable to speak. He thought for sure he was about to die as the witches advanced on him.

"Hold thy tongue, you filthy piece of dog shit, and listen to your mistresses when they are speaking to you!" bellowed Kotake.

"Vrog's method was proven effective," repeated Koume. "Furthermore, the amount of time that he held his position is irrelevant. What matters is that during that time, he had _influence. _He made an impact on society! Even now, several hundred years later, the government is making efforts to heal the devastating wounds he inflicted on the national treasury. Only now is our economy rising out of shambles to its former glory, and this _three hundred years _after the Mad King Vrog made those damages!"

"We will have that power," said Kotake. "And we are neither as foolish nor as weak as King Vrog. Despite his talent as an orator, his one-in-a-million special ability to seduce the population like no man before him ever could, he was an idiot. We are not idiots. And look how we hold the population at our fingers! They think we are the goddesses themselves!"

Ishmael knew he had not misinterpreted Kotake's last sentence. She had just admitted that she and her sister, with the mysterious third sibling that appeared at all their sermons, were _not _in fact the goddesses, as they preached they were. They had told him that very fact and they had tried to convince him of it. He knew they had convinced the Shiekah, but they had not convinced him. He believed firmly that the power of the goddesses went beyond the light tricks that these witches performed on frequent occasions. But suddenly, they dropped the façade and admitted to embroidering every little detail of their shenanigans. Had Kotake meant to give all that away? Or had she merely let it slip?

"My sister does not speak without thinking, as you do," said Koume, as though reading his thoughts. "Take that information however you want to. We see how you fake your loyalty to us while you pray to the _real _goddesses. Why would there be any need for us to continue spouting shit at you as you so much like to spout at us? You will not believe in us. But we have seen in the Shiekah that they _do _believe. And we can see the small pockets among the population of Hyrule that have begun to shift their beliefs, as well. Even now, we are having an influence."

"Remember, Ishmael," said Kotake. "It doesn't matter what secrets we reveal to you. You can't tell them to anyone. You know what will happen if you try."

They turned and flew slowly out of the room. In the doorway, the cloaked man stopped and turned. "Recognize this," he said. "I will not give you any advice; but I will give you a warning. Now that you have been told the secret of our conspiracy, you must play your cards more carefully. Do not act out of turn, and think wisely on every move you make. They are testing you."

He turned and followed the witches out.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: The Composer Brothers

"Jonathan Smith probably had great expectations for his sons when he named them Flat and Sharp. Smith, a blacksmith, had a dream when he was younger to become a piano player; but at the age of twelve, he received permanent damage to the fingers of his right hand, and that dream became impossible to him. Nonetheless, Smith was not known to give up easily. He passed the dream onto his children, and enrolled them in a music school when they came of appropriate age.

They proceeded to excel in every possible way. Their talent to make music was unprecedented. Teachers called them "gifted," but that may have been an understatement. Graduating at the top of their class, they went on to become musicians, living their father's dream. They came to be well-known throughout Hyrule, and finally, King Oswald recognized their talents. He offered to hire them as composers for the Royal Family. They accepted, and thus became Flat and Sharp—the Royal Composer Brothers."

—Excerpt from Music of the Ages, by Oscar Blanque

Twelve years ago…

Flat and Sharp,

I write to you on this occasion because I want to present you with an opportunity. I have recognized your talents and I deem you worthy of serving as the composers for the Royal Family. Consider yourselves honored, as this is a position that is assigned only to the most prominent musicians of the generation. The choice is yours, of course; there are other musicians that we would consider. However, I would like to remind you that this is an opportunity which will open many new possibilities for you. I will send a messenger to you tomorrow for your decision.

Signed,

King Oswald

"It's from the king himself!" exclaimed Sharp, reading over the letter.

"Well, what does it say?" asked Flat.

"You ought to read it for yourself," said Sharp, handing it over to his brother. Flat read through it.

"Well, I'll be," he said. "Composers for the royal family."

"We can't accept, of course," said Sharp. "Not with our father in the condition that he's in. We need to stay here to watch over him."

They both looked at Jonathan Smith, lying on a bed across the room. Three weeks previously, he had suffered horrible burns all over his body when his shop had burned down in a Shiekah attack.

"You're right," said Flat. "When the messenger comes tomorrow, we will politely decline."

They were startled out of their conversation by the sound of screams from outside.

"Shiekah! The Shiekah are attacking!"

"Oh, no," said Flat, his voice trembling. "Not again! Not so soon after the last time!"

"We need to get to the shelter, quickly," said Sharp.

The shelter that Sharp spoke of was a huge underground maze of twisting corridors that extended beneath the entire village. It had been built during the tribal wars, to act as a shelter then, and it acted as one now. Its entrance was in the graveyard just to the east of the village: a twisting stairway that led into the earth, concealed by a gravestone. The gravestone could be pushed back to reveal the stairs, and pushed over them again—once everyone was through—with the help of a hidden lever. Due to the Shiekah, the shelter was being used again after centuries of neglect. The Kakariko villagers knew of the shelter like the Gerudo knew of the temple in the desert: through documents of their ancestors. But unlike the temple, the shelter was something that the Shiekah did not know about. Or, so the villagers thought.

"Come on!" shouted their neighbor, Ishmael, appearing in the doorway. He looked down at Jonathan lying on the bed. "I can carry him," he said. Ishmael was a strong man. He let the two brothers pass him out the door as he entered the house and lifted Jonathan over his shoulder. As he left the house, he looked down the hillside at a running woman, falling as she was struck in the back by an arrow. The officer of the Shiekah that had slain her came up the hill to Ishmael.

"Burn this house," he said, "And take the letter that is sitting on the table."

He looked around. "The town is being evacuated. I'll follow them to their shelter. Go to the Shadow Temple, and I shall arrive there when the plan is complete."

The man nodded and ran off. Ishmael, still carrying Jonathan over his shoulder, went up to the windmill and around to the right where a path led off to the graveyard. A heavy steel portcullis had been dropped to block off the path. A town guard stationed on the other side saw him and pulled the lever, causing the portcullis to rise and allow passage. "Hurry through!" he shouted. "The rest have gone to the shelter."

Ishmael went through the gate and the guard closed it again behind him. Continuing up the hill, he reached the graveyard. Taking a left, he went up a short incline and came upon a grave which had been slid back from its normal position, revealing the stairs that led down to the shelter. He started to descend them. The guard followed him in and pulled the lever, causing the gravestone to slide back into place.

At the bottom of the stairs, they entered a dimly lit chamber where the other villagers were gathered. "Thank the goddesses you're all right," said Flat, walking up to Ishmael beside Sharp.

"Are we ready?" asked the town mayor.

"Ready enough," said Ishmael. "I'll have to fall behind, seeing as I'm carrying the extra weight."

"We'll walk along with you," said Sharp.

_Perfect, _thought Ishmael. _Now I just need to create some distance between myself and those villagers. This is all going according to plan._

The mayor nodded. "Everyone, follow me," he said.

The place they intended to go was further in. It was the central chamber of the shelter. Whenever there was an attack on the village, they stayed there for twenty-four hours, giving the village guards and reinforcements from Hyrule Castle time to fight off the Shiekah. Sometimes they would retreat and then make another attack within mere hours of the first, and that was why the villagers took the caution of staying underground for a period of one day.

Deeper and deeper they went into the shelter. Ishmael kept a consistent distance of twenty feet behind the rest. _Here it comes, _he thought. _If Daron did everything right, then it's going to happen…right…_

A sudden explosion rocked the earth. It was a concentrated and powerful blast. Ishmael and the two brothers were assailed with a cloud of dirt and dust, and when it cleared, they saw that a pile of rubble now blocked the way ahead.

"Ishmael!" It was the mayor. "Ishmael, can you hear me? Are you all right?"

"I'm all right!" he shouted back. "You go on ahead, and we'll take the long way around!"

"That way is dangerous, Ishmael!" shouted the mayor. "You should stay there, and we can have this cleared out within two hours!"

"Come on, boys," said Ishmael. "Ignore him. You're going to come with me."

"Ishmael!" shouted the mayor. "Ishmael, can you hear me? Ishmael! ISHMAEL!"

There was no response from the other side.

"Damn that fool!" roared the mayor. "He's going to take the long way around! He knows how dangerous it is!"

_You did a good job as usual, Daron, _thought Ishmael. Daron was one of the Shiekah. He was an explosives expert. He performed experiments with the volatile powder found in the rare bomb flowers of Death Mountain to create different types of explosives to be used in many different situations. In this instance, a very thin, nearly invisible trip wire had been placed across the path way. As the mayor, leading the villagers, passed through it, it sprung a device that caused a bomb planted in the wall to go off, and the way was thus blocked.

"Ishmael, why are we taking the long way around?" asked Sharp.

"We're not," said Ishmael.

"What do you mean?" asked Flat.

"I am taking you to hell," said Ishmael. "Where you will serve me for the rest of your lives."

"What are you saying?" demanded Sharp.

"I am the one they call the Bloody Flame, Ishmael Bogarth, proud leader of those that will soon become the rulers of humanity," said Ishmael. Flat and Sharp gasped. Ishmael smiled and said, "Welcome Flat, and welcome Sharp, to the Shiekah family. We'll be delighted to have you serve us."


	7. Chapter 6

It's been a little bit longer since the last update, but on the other hand, I've also gotten somewhat into the next chapter as well while I was putting off on uploading this one. Remember, this chapter is still taking place twelve years in the past, so don't get confused with anything involving chronology like I often do when I'm watching a movie or reading a book and happen to forget at one point or another that back in the very beginning it went into the past from where it started. We are still following the story of Flat and Sharp, and now we will learn the important information about why they are so important to the Shiekah and the sort of significance they're going to have in the rest of the plot. Enjoy! Careful. There's a beheading in this chapter and then the guy's head gets kicked against a wall. Turn away if you do not want to witness such violence.

Chapter Six: The Ocarina of Time

Slowly, Sharp opened his eyes. His head was swimming and his vision was blurred. For a moment he thought that his eyes were still closed, but realized that he was in a very dark room. _Where am I? _He remembered being in the shelter…an explosion…and then, his mind went blank. He couldn't remember anything after that.

He could make out the vague outline of something off to the left. It looked like another bed. As he continued to look at it, he thought he could almost see something on top of it. If it was a bed, then…could that be Flat?

"Flat…" he moaned. His voice sounded weak and not his own. It seemed to come from somewhere else, as though he was hearing an echo, and it sounded distorted as though it were travelling through water to reach him. "Flat, are you there?"

There was no answer.

"I'm surprised you've woken up so quickly after that large of a dose," said a voice. "Although I can see that its effects have not worn off."

"Who…are you?" asked Sharp. In the darkness, he couldn't see who or what he was speaking to. And what he said...dose…effects…_Have I been drugged?_

"Temporary amnesia," said the voice. "That's another effect of the drug; but even if you don't remember anything that occurred after that explosion in the shelter, you should recognize my voice. I'm an old family friend."

Sharp's sense of hearing was warped by the drug, but there was a distinct tone in the voice that was familiar to him. He thought of people he knew, then his immediate neighbors. _Theodore, Fadray, Jack…_it didn't fit any of them. _Ishmael. _The name and the voice clicked right into place like two pieces of a puzzle. "Ishmael…" he groaned. It was becoming more difficult to talk. His vocal chords were weak. "What…what is…"

"What is this?" Ishmael finished for him. "Why, this is my wonderful stronghold—the Shadow Temple. We, the Shiekah, use this as our base of operations. Ah! I wish I could see your face now, remembering how priceless it was the first time I told you the very same thing. I love how difficult it is for humans with untrained eyes to see through such simple disguises. I didn't even have to change my name and I was still able to fit right into your little society even though I am one of the most wanted criminals in the world. It does help that nobody has ever seen my face—my _real _face, the one that I wear when I drop my mask and become Ishmael Bogarth, the Bloody Flame!"

Across the room, a third person joined the conversation with a fit of violent coughing. It went on for a moment and then slowly died down into a series of deep, rapid breaths. "I think I may have given him too strong of a dose," said Ishmael.

"What…" gasped Flat, squeezing out the word between breaths. "What…the hell is this?"

"Flat, don't talk," said Sharp. "Maybe…it would just be best if we lie still…and listen to this bastard speak…"

"That's a good idea," said Ishmael. "Flat, allow me to fill you in. I am Ishmael Bogarth, the one and only Bloody Flame, and you are now the captives of the future rulers of the world—the Shiekah. I'm sorry if you find this to be a little sudden, but you'll just have to go along with it. I'm afraid that you don't have a choice.

"Introductions aside, there's a reason that I captured you, and there is also a reason that I want to keep you away from that nasty little disease called "death" if at all possible. You should consider yourselves honored, being the first of our captives to be given the opportunity to live. Consider yourselves honored! I found a letter in your house, addressed to you from King Oswald himself, that said the very same thing in regards to an opportunity for you two to become the composers for the Royal Family. Wouldn't you consider yourselves lucky if you could take _both _of those opportunities and use them to their full potential? Oh, but you can't get one without the other. I hope you understand what I'm hinting at.

"Of course, you might find a loophole in my plan; I want you to become the composers for the Royal Family. I have threatened you with death if you do not comply. But if you are dead, then how would you fulfill my request? Well, being a man who has been exposed to quite a bit of death over the years, I have gained the understanding that there are different _types _of death. There is the physical death; if you were to suffer that, you would be unable to serve me, and I would not find that suitable. But there is also the _emotional _death. This occurs when someone finds that everything they care about is gone, and they have nothing left to live for. Suddenly, they degenerate to naught but a shell of their former selves. It is at this stage that many people commit suicide, choosing to relieve themselves with the physical death.

"You could kill yourselves. There's nothing that I can do to stop that. But there would be nothing you could gain from doing so. So allow me to reiterate that there is a very simple way to avoid that path, and that is to do exactly what I tell you to. And so! Let me explain how I plan to kill you if you _don't _do just exactly that. Cornelius! A torch, if you please!"

A moment passed, and then the room was filled with light. Finally, Flat and Sharp got a complete view of the room they were in, and it was shocking. It was a fairly large room with a single door that led out into a hallway. The walls were made of stone. And splattered across that stone like paint across a canvas was blood, literally gallons of it. More shocking than that, however, was the horribly sharp guillotine erected in the center of the room, and the man whose head was stuck right in the path of the blade.

"I'll give you a quick tour," said Ishmael. "This is generally the room we use for execution of prisoners by the lovely guillotine method. But since it's somewhat spacious, we occasionally use it as a room to line those filthy little heretics against the wall and use them to hone our skills with the bow and arrow. I really _should _get that wall cleaned."

He walked up to the guillotine. The man was unconscious. Ishmael kicked him. "Wake up, swine!" he shouted. He kicked the man again. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. He took but a moment to remember where he was, and let out a blood-curdling, spine-tingling scream. "No!" he bellowed. "No! Let me out of here, you sons of bitches! You can't do this to me!"

Ishmael dropped the guillotine. In one swift motion, it fell and rose again. Where it struck, a man's head fell away from his shoulders and rolled a short distance across the floor to become forever silent. Ishmael walked up to it and kicked it like a soccer ball against the wall, causing blood to spray out. Flat was queasy to the sight of blood, and erupted into convulsive vomiting. Sharp nearly vomited as well, but forced himself to turn his head away from the scene.

"The lights again please, Cornelius," said Ishmael. The torch went out. There was the sound of something being dragged across the floor. The torch came on again, and Flat and Sharp saw before them their worst nightmare: The man whose head now rested beneath the guillotine was their father, Jonathan Smith.

"Now," said Ishmael. "I would like an answer."

"Yes," said Sharp. "We…will obey you."

"Very good," said Ishmael. "I was hoping you might say that. So then, let me give you the mission briefing. You are to go to the king and accept his offer to become the composers for the Royal Family. Once you have done this, I want you to bring me something.

Perhaps you've heard the old legends of an instrument that can play melodies which produce certain…magical effects. Each different combination of notes will have a different outcome; the legends say that some composers wrote songs that could even control the weather, or change night to day and vice versa. Imagine if I could have such power! Quite fortunately, I _can. _The legends also say that the instrument is still to this day passed down through the royal family, and I have sources that the royal composers are among the few that have complete access to it."

"You want…" said Flat. "The Ocarina…of Time?"

"That's right," said Ishmael. "And you two are going to get it for me. Otherwise, you're soon going to find everything you care about gone, like water down a drain. Now, I'm glad we've come to this agreement. I'll have you escorted back to Kakariko, and you will promptly go to Hyrule Castle and accept the king's offer. One week from now at midnight, you will meet with my man Cornelius in the back alleyway of the Hyrule Castle Town Market. He will give you more details then. Thank you for your time."

The next day, early in the morning, there came a knocking on the door. Sharp answered it, and saw a man dressed in fine armor. Flat joined Sharp in the doorway, and the man bowed to each of them. "Good morning, Master Flat, and Master Sharp," he said. "I assume you have taken some time to think over the letter you received yesterday from King Oswald. Have you made a decision?"

"We want to take the opportunity," said Flat. "We want to rise to become the best musicians that we can be."

The messenger nodded. "Follow me, then," he said. "I will escort you to him."

"Good morning, Flat and Sharp," said King Oswald. They looked at him in awe. He was a tall and muscular man, wearing long, flowing red silk robes with a large golden Triforce symbol sown onto the chest. He had a short white beard and on his head he wore a bejeweled golden crown. He gave off such an aura of power that they felt almost intimidated by him. "I am pleased that you chose to accept my offer. I must say, I am surprised that you have done so. I was of course aware of the situation with your father, and expected that you would be hesitant; but I understand now that he has been missing as of yesterday, captured by the Shiekah, or so presumed. Well, I don't want to try to push you to discomfort, so soon after you've been subjected to such grief…but, out of simple curiosity, what has impelled you to accept this position even in light of that event?"

"Well, Your Majesty," said Sharp, "We can only assume that since our father has been kidnapped by the Shiekah, he may not have long left in this world. He meant very, very much to us. It has always been the job of the royal composer…or _composers, _in cases such as our own...to inspire the population with music. That's why we want to inspire people, too. We feel that this is the best way to use our talents in order to help people. We want to communicate with them in a language that everyone understands—music. And right now, there is nobody in Hyrule that can do that better than we can."

The king smiled. "That's a very good answer," he said. "There have been many before you that sought after much more selfish goals. Your hearts are pure, and I'm sure you can live up to this dream that you describe. You want to convey messages to people through music, to try to promote peace, and prevent tragedies like what happened to your father from ever occurring again. Well, then! Flat and Sharp, you are now the composers for the royal family. Please, step forward."

They stepped forward, to within two feet of where King Oswald sat on his throne. He reached into the pocket of his robe and took out something wrapped in thin parchment. Carefully, he unwrapped it. "Put your left hands side-by-side, palms facing up," he said. They did so, and he placed the object there. It was a blue ocarina, clearly old, but yet in very good condition.

"That is the Ocarina of Time," said King Oswald. "It is the responsibility of the royal composers to take care of that instrument. If it finds that you are pure of heart and have a love for music, it will let you play it to your heart's content. Be warned, however—it harnesses an incredible magic power. Use that power wisely, and make it your own; that is how you will fulfill your dreams."


	8. Chapter 7

It's been a while since my last update, but this time I have a good reason. See, I was writing this chapter. But then it started getting pretty long. I decided to still keep it as one chapter. But then it got really long, and I thought that I should divide it into two chapters to avoid noticeable inconsistency in chapter length. I made that decision right as I was nearing the end of writing this thing, so I just finished up, and now I'm going to be posting two chapters at once. Well, kind of. I'll post the other one tomorrow after I read over it a little bit. Anyway, these next few chapters have it all--espionage, battles, stupid jokes, potty humor (You know we can't live without it), and the introduction of some of Hyrule's other races into the story, particularly the Gorons, and their leader, the legendary hero Megaton who is mentioned in Ocarina of Time and whose hammer can be wielded to defeat the dragon Volvagia. Yeah, he's a total badass. So, let's get on with it!

Flat and Sharp went to the castle library and began studying books on the history of music. They hoped they might find information on the Ocarina of Time—something they could use to fight back against Ishmael. The greatest hole in his plan was that he firmly believed there weren't any. And if there weren't any holes, they would have to dig some. The ocarina was magic, after all; and the brothers were determined. They had a balance before them. On one side was their father, and their village, which Ishmael would surely destroy without hesitation if they disobeyed him. On the other side was Hyrule—doomed to fall to the Shiekah if the Ocarina of Time was surrendered to them. Hyrule—the entire known world—certainly weighed a great deal more than one village; but what was to say that Ishmael wouldn't find a way to accomplish his goals even if he didn't get the ocarina?

And so, either path they chose could mean the potential end of Hyrule. The only way to create a desirable result was to destroy that balance; in peace, there was no need for two things to be weighed against each other—everything was equal. It was clear what needed to be done: suppress the offenders of the peace. Telling the king or anyone else about the situation they were in was not an option; if they did so, Ishmael was sure to find out somehow. Flat and Sharp saw numerous guards around the castle that exhibited suspicious behavior; any one of them could be spies, or all of them. There was no safety here. But yet, Flat and Sharp could not hope to defeat the Shiekah by themselves. What they needed was a way to expose the Shiekah plan without showing any suspicion. They

hoped they might be able to use the ocarina to do that.

They had not but a week before they were to meet with Cornelius. If they were to find something out, they had to find it fast. Not but for eat and sleep did they remove themselves from textbooks that continued to pile higher and higher as they continued to find nothing of use. And then, finally—they found something.

In an old book, tattered and torn, they found the tale of a former composer. His name was Herbert Gibson, one that had been lost to Hyrule's common taught history. As the tale went, Herbert Gibson was a Kokiri, one of the "child-people" of the southern forest. He was very skilled with the flute and had been known to play songs that were very appealing to all the little woodland creatures. There was a small grove where he liked to go to play, and all the deer and birds and others would gather around to make an audience.

Herbert had a sister named Saria, an ancestor to the girl of the same name that would become the Forest Sage. She loved his music very much, and so he wrote a song just for her—Saria's Song. When she came to thirteen years of age, he gave her his old flute and taught her how to play it. "I'm going off on a journey now," he told her. "And I may not see you very often. But if you ever find yourself in trouble, then just play the song I wrote for you—and I promise you, I will come."

So it was that Herbert set out to become the royal composer. One day, he received a letter. It was addressed to him from the leader of a group of bandits. They had captured his sister and taken her into the woods. If he wanted her back, he had to pay a ransom of ten thousand rupees.

There was no other choice for Herbert. He had to pay the money. It was nearly his entire life's savings, but if it was for the sake of saving his sister, he would have given that life up without a second thought. But Herbert was saved by a miracle. The very next day, a Kokiri messenger came to the castle and gave a strange piece of news: The Kokiri could hear music coming from the forest. It could be heard everywhere in the village at once, and it was so loud that people were having trouble falling asleep at night, or for that matter, getting anything done whatsoever with the distraction that it caused.

Feeling suddenly hopeful, Herbert rode south across Hyrule Field to the Kokiri Forest. As soon as he entered the village, a familiar tune reached his ears. It was Saria's Song. Herbert's flute was one of several instruments which existed at the time that contained the same magical properties as the Ocarina of Time, but the ocarina was the only member of the trio that was known to still exist. The magic of Saria's Song, when it was played on such an instrument, was its ability to carry over a much longer distance than most sounds. Hearing it, Herbert knew that his sister was somewhere in the forest playing the flute.

With a group of Hylian soldiers, Herbert went into the forest. He took the main path that started out from the village. There were frequent crossroads which offered three different paths for the taking; Herbert would venture down each and if the music got quieter, he knew that was not the path to take. Wherever it was the loudest, that was the way he went. So they went, following the sound of music. And finally, they were led to a clearing where they surprised a group of bandits gathered around a fire. They defeated the gang, and cut Saria down from where she was tied against a tree.

And thus was the story of Saria's Song.

The two brothers were provided with a songbook to accompany the Ocarina of Time. They leafed through it until they came to the section of songs starting with the letter S. They were elated to find that it was the very first one at the top of the page. "This may be just what we're looking for," said Flat. "It's a gamble, but if we're taken to someplace where sound can travel freely in and out, then we might play this song on the ocarina to call for help to come."

"And if we're not taken to such a place, where the music could be heard," said Sharp, "Then…"

"Then we fail," said Flat, "And that will be the end of it. It's extremely hard to be optimistic in this situation."

"We'll need to make sure we can play the song properly, and not flub the notes," said Sharp. "It _can _work! But we can't practice here in the castle, or we'll give too much away."

"We'll need to go someplace secluded, then," said Flat.

They went to the library and studied the map of Hyrule that was mounted on the wall. It was the only map in existence that showed the land in its entirety. They laid their eyes in particular on the area just northwest of the castle, where the edge of the forest met the base of the mountains.

There was a river that ran through there. It was one of the branches of Zora's River. The map did not designate a name to it. It went east a ways before it disappeared into the uncharted wastelands. The map showed a large floodplain at the point where the river came the closest to the mountains. Right where that plain met the forest, the map showed a cropping of large rocks intermixed with the trees.

"There," said Sharp. "Do you remember that old wanderer, Orca, who used to stop by in Kakariko Village during the spring and tell stories of his travels? I remember one in particular that he always told, about the time when he got lost as he was travelling to Thorton in the north. It was night, and he was cold. He wandered through the forest for hours before he came to a ring of huge rocks erected at the edge of a floodplain. He said that near there, he found an opening in the ground. He went into the hole, and followed a downward slope for several seconds before the narrow tunnel widened out into a chamber. He stayed there the night; but he was nearly starved to death, and he might have died had not a fairy come to him. He followed it, and it led him back to the path."

"Those rocks there," said Flat. "You're absolutely right! That must be the spot where he found the cave! It would be a perfect place for us to practice!"

Thus they decided on it. And one night later, they left the castle, with their clothes, a compass, and a dagger for each of them—for protection. Sneaking past the guards to get outside, they climbed the cliff wall near the castle moat. They went along the ridge until they came to where a tree grew just close enough to the cliff for them to leap onto its extending branch and climb down to the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sharp caught movement on the ridge. He spun around to look, but there was nothing there. However, he knew that his eyes had not tricked him. Just as they had expected would happen, someone was following them. "I've spotted one," whispered Sharp.

"Good," said Flat. "He may not think that we've seen him. He won't do anything yet, not while we're still so close to the castle. He'll wait until we're a good distance away and then come after us. We might be at the advantage because he'll have orders not to kill us, but as for us, we oughtn't care if he dies or not."

They kept going, until they got onto the road that led north from the Castle Town to Thorton. They followed it north just a short distance, to where it entered the edge of the forest. In there, they were out of the sight of anyone, and became vulnerable targets to whoever was following them. As soon as they were beneath the cover of the trees, Flat and Sharp dashed away from the path into the brush. A light drizzle had started as they'd entered the forest, and it suddenly became a torrential downpour that forced them to work their way through mud as they ran, getting plenty of scratches as they hacked away dead branches with their arms. Then they stopped, and split in two directions. Flat left a trail of evident footprints in the dirt, while Sharp crept down into the bushes and moved carefully so as not to leave any tracks. They both climbed up into the branches and waited.

A man appeared. Flat and Sharp both recognized him with his long hair and freckled face: a man named Nicholas, one of the castle guards. Among all the guards, he had appeared most suspicious to them. "Come on out, now," he said. "I know you're here. Ishmael, ah, he won't be too happy about this. You know as well as I do, he don't like to play games, and so neither do I."

He bent down on his knees and looked at the ground. "So you've gone off to the left," he said. It was a foolish assumption to make, knowing that there were two targets. But he went to the left. Sharp, having gone to the right, descended quietly from the tree and then made no attempts to conceal himself as he charged at Nicholas.

Nicholas turned, unable to mask his surprise. He drew a saber from a sheath slung over his shoulder and lunged at Sharp, but Flat leapt down from the tree branch just above him and knocked him to the ground. Wildly he hacked his sword at the air, hoping to hit something. It slashed against the back of Flat's right calf, and Nicholas pulled him down to the ground. They rolled around in the mud and wet foliage, each trying to get an advantage over the other. Sharp kicked Nicholas hard in the face, breaking his nose, and his hands instinctively shot up to protect the area from further damage. Flat then forced him onto his back and swiftly slit his throat. He stood up, breathing heavily.

"We got him," he said.

"Is your injury all right?" asked Sharp.

"It's fine," said Flat, but even as he said it, he stumbled and had to rest his hand on a tree. "Let me see it," said Sharp. He bent down and pulled up Flat's right pant leg. The wound went in deep, and it was bleeding profusely.

"It's bad," said Sharp. "We could take you back to see a doctor, and try again tomorrow night…"

"This might be the only chance we'll get," said Flat.

"But you're…" protested Sharp. "Well, you're right, in any circumstances. As soon as Nicholas's body is found, we're not going to be given any more freedom. I'll leave the call to you. If you think you have the strength to do it, put your arm over my shoulder and I'll help you move."

Flat did so. "I thought that's what you'd do," said Sharp. "Then let's go."

Together, the two of them went back to the main road. Somewhere in the distance, the wolf howled. The wolf and the rooster were the gods of the sun and the moon, it was said. Every night, when the sun set and the moon rose into the sky, a wolf would let out a long and beautiful howl that could be heard across the land; and similarly, when the moon fell and the sun rose, there was the familiar crow of a rooster. They were among numerous lesser gods that were believed to exist beneath the three omnipotent and omniscient deities credited for the creation of Hyrule in all of its splendor—Din, Farore, and Nayru.

Cued by the howl of the wolf, the rain stopped as swiftly as it began. And as the last drops faded into nothing, a change came over the forest. All around them, little lights like lanterns appeared. Noiselessly, they weaved in and out of the trees. They were like great big fireflies. "Fairies," said Sharp, looking about in wonder. It was nothing out of the ordinary, since thousands of fairies inhabited the forests of Hyrule, and all of them came out at night; yet, neither of the two brothers had ever witnessed the spectacle before.

The fairies were said to have a magical healing ability, and it was even said that they could bring a man back to life after death. It was because of this fact that they were often hunted, albeit illegally. Men would go into the forest at night with special fairy-catching nets and they would trap fairies and sell them at high prices on the black market. One event leading to another, it may also have been as a result of the hunts that the fairies seemed to be afraid of humans. They were elusive creatures, and they stayed away from humans whenever it was at all possible. They did, however, harbor a liking for the Kokiri; in fact, every Kokiri had a fairy partner that would come to them at a very young age and stick by them through all strife. Many believed this was so because the fairies followed the will of the forest spirit, the Great Deku Tree, and he considered the Kokiri to be his children. The fairies were never attracted to any other creatures except the Kokiri—except in very rare cases like in the story of Orca, the wanderer.

The forest they were in was an extension of the Kokiri Forest. It covered a massive area. Most of it lay to the south. There, the Kokiri Village was located right at the place where the forest bordered Hyrule Field. Beyond that village, it was said to stretch for many miles southward until it reached the edge of the world, although there was no accurate account of how far it actually went because nobody had ever explored that far.

It met its end just a few miles west of the Kokiri Forest. There, the trees dissipated and there were wet and gloomy marshlands. The western edge of those marshes was the western edge of the world. Many had stood there and looked down into the great abyss. If the light was just right, it was rumored that you could stand there and view the very tails of the roots. You see, Hyrule was a gigantic, flat plate. It had a top and a bottom. The roots were the roots of all the trees in that forest, and they sprouted right out of the bottom of that plate like millions of wooden tentacles.

East of the Kokiri Village, the forest curved northward and travelled alongside the cliffs that circled around the entire Hyrule Field like a giant ring. It travelled round the obtrusion in the ring that was formed by Kakariko Village and then slithered like a snake around the base of Death Mountain and through its deep canyons. Then it curved back west again, where it ran alongside the river and the mountains, until it met the cliffs at the western edge of the world. It grew in a shape like a crescent moon around the giant circle that was Hyrule Field. Some ancient philosophers had looked at the two and thought that if the crescent shape of the forest was to be interpreted as the moon, then they interpreted the large, circular shape of the field as the sun. Thus the way the two were entwined with each other was thought to be representing an embrace of the moon and the sun—two opposites of each other, locked together for eternity. The interlocking sun and moon thus came to symbolize peace.

Flat and Sharp went north and then west along the road. It seemed as though they walked for hours, getting nowhere; but then, finally, they saw the rocks. There were exactly twelve of them, arranged in a circle; they were monolithic beasts that reached straight up into the sky like arms grasping for the sun, but never touching. There were carvings etched into the stone. They were intricately detailed and they told a story that flowed with passing millennia; and yet there they were to stay, stuck in place yet never stuck in time, until eternity would erode them away. Flat and Sharp could not hope to understand what any of the carvings meant.

And just as Orca had told it, there was a hole in the ground. They went into it and it sloped downwards and then flattened out like a cave. They followed it and followed it, until they reached the end. Flat, feeling exhausted, rested his body against the wall of the cave and felt more carvings there. "Play the song that makes the ocarina glow," he said to Sharp. "Remember that one? We played it earlier today at the castle."

Sharp nodded in the darkness. He played the song, and the ocarina lit up like a torch, lighting a small area around them. They saw that their path was not blocked by a stone wall, but by a large blue block. It had on it a carving of a rising sun, and beneath that, a single row of instructions written in a language that only a musician would understand: musical notes.

"What is this?" Sharp wondered aloud, staring at the block. "This song…what…is it?"

He put the ocarina to his lips, and played as the notes instructed.

For a moment afterwards, nothing happened.

Then, the block shimmered with light and disappeared.

Flat and Sharp stepped forward into a circular room. It was brightly lit by some unseen source of light, and the walls danced with bright sparkles of blue and white. They walked slowly forth across marble tiles, and stopped at the edge of a large fountain with water that glistened like gold.

As they stepped up to it, little ripples formed in the water. They grew larger and larger, and then, with a tremendous splash, a woman burst from the liquid, gushing sparkling water from her body as she rose into the air. She shook her long, silver hair and looked at them.

"Hello," she said, in a voice that was unimaginably beautiful. "You are Flat and Sharp, are you not? I am the Great Fairy, and this is my domain."

Flat and Sharp exchanged a silent glance. Could they really be in the presence of the legendary queen of the fairies?

"Orca thought you might come here," she said. "You might have seen a cropping of rocks on the map of Hyrule and you came here because you thought it would be a secluded place. There are many other large rocks around here; but the rocks outside this cave are special. They form what is called the Sacred Circle, and they remain hidden to all except those they deem worthy of entering. They apparently found you worthy, as Orca predicted they would; and so here you are."

"Orca?" said Flat. "You're the fairy that helped him, aren't you? When he came here a long time ago! Where is he?"

"He resides here," said the Great Fairy. "There is a room just beyond my chamber where he sits and studies books. His days of wandering Hyrule have ended, but he is still a vast source of information. He asked me that if you were to come here, I should take the both of you back to him."

"Then take us to him," said Sharp.

"Very well," said the Great Fairy. And as she finished speaking, a door that had not been visible before suddenly appeared in the far wall. "Go through there," she said. The two brothers said nothing. They merely walked to the door and opened it. Surely what they had stumbled across in this cave was nothing but destiny, and destiny could not be argued with.

Orca was there. He was sitting in a rocking chair, reading a book. He looked up as they entered, and he put the book down.

"You've come," he said. "I didn't know when, nor was I absolutely certain that you would. But it seems that destiny has decided to favor you. So since it has, I will do what it has asked me to do, as well. I know of the sort of situation you're in right now, since the Great Fairy told me. The Great Fairy sees and knows many things. Well, Flat and Sharp, you might wonder who I am. I am a former composer, not the one who preceded you, but the one before that. I am a descendent of the very first composer in the line, ah, you may have heard of him—Herbert Gibson was his name. I have his flute, and I think what destiny has told me to do is give it to you, so that you might use it. It has the same powers as the Ocarina of Time."

"Tell us about the powers of Saria's Song," said Flat.

"That is why you came here?" said Orca. "Oh! I see what you intend to do. It's not a bad plan. Saria's song is known to have the magic ability to carry over very long distances. Provided you were given the chance to play it, then the music might carry to where someone could hear it, and a rescue attempt would be made."

"That's right," said Sharp.

"I might be able to help you make that work," said Orca. "An old friend of mine has installed himself within the Shiekah as a spy. His name is Cornelius."

He saw the look in their faces and said, "You've met him?"

"We're arranged to meet him six nights from now," said Sharp. "Ishmael said we were to deliver the ocarina to him then."

"That's convenient," said Orca. "Well, Cornelius is under many of the same constraints that you are. See, Ishmael is the only member of the Shiekah that knows where this "Shadow Temple" that they call their headquarters is actually located. When they're first brought into the organization, they're taken there while blindfolded. Then the blindfold is taken off, and they're given a tour. This is what Cornelius has told me. He was, for a while, managing to send me short letters via the airways, that is, the eagles. I haven't gotten one from him in a while, so I've assumed that Ishmael has started to become suspicious of a spy in his midst and is paying a lot closer attention to each of his officers.

"Anyway, Cornelius tells me that the man who gives the tour is a man who wears a black cloak. He is the entire Sheikan information network; but from what I understand, Ishmael has never seen his face, nor does he even know the man's name. Despite that, it seems that he would trust this man with his life. Cornelius has only ever seen this man when he gives the tours. He seems to seclude himself elsewhere at every other time, else he is meeting with Ishmael in one of that place's many sequestered rooms. Now, the blindfolding is apparently not just for the newcomers, so Cornelius tells me. The way that the Shiekah enter the temple is through a secret door somewhere up in the mountains.

That's all he knows. There's a rendezvous point about several miles down the river from here. Shiekah officers go there and after a while a guide, a man reputed to wear a tattered brown cloak and a white face mask, comes to take them to the temple. It's blindfolds on and then an hour of walking. They go through the same damn thing every day. Cornelius has speculated on the idea of there being multiple guides in order to handle the traffic, but he hasn't been able to get any evidence on that. This is all so that Ishmael can keep the true location of the temple a secret, even to the most trusted members of his clan. He's a very careful man—there's no denying that.

Since Cornelius made himself a member of the Shiekah, he lives the life of the Shiekah. They have rooms in the Shadow Temple where there are beds lined up for Shiekah officers to sleep at night, and they have a large mess hall where they eat three meals a day. To put it simply, no Shiekah leaves that temple unless he's given orders by Ishmael to do so. Even if Cornelius was able to discover the location of the temple, he couldn't just waltz out of there at any time he wanted to, come down to Hyrule Castle, and tell the king all about it. Furthermore, missions are always assigned in pairs. If Cornelius were given a mission that required him to perform a task outside of the temple, he would go with another Shiekah officer. Even if a single officer would be perfectly capable of performing the job by himself, Ishmael always sends two in order to prevent betrayal. To summarize all of this, Cornelius has no way of informing anybody about any of the Shiekah's plans—except for me, and we've apparently lost that contact.

"As for me, I'm confined to this cave in about the same way that Cornelius is confined to the Shadow Temple. If I were to step too far outside of my boundaries, too many people would know far too soon. See, it's quite simple: Ishmael wants my flute. He wants the three instruments that make up the trio: the ocarina, the flute, and the third…well, it's rumored to be a violin, but there aren't any records of it remaining. But, as far as Ishmael knows at the moment, I'm dead, and he'll never be able to find the flute. That's why he turned to you, so that he could get a shot at the Ocarina of Time. He may not be able to get all three of the instruments, but if he can get one of them, it's good enough for him."

"What would it mean if he were to get all three?" asked Sharp.

"I don't know, honestly," said Orca. "But there are prophecies which speak of unimaginable power, power enough to destroy the world if used improperly. There are numerous prophecies, all recorded in different time periods and from prophets of different tribes across Hyrule, but they all hint at two things—music, and the number "three." Three could be hinting at the Triforce, which is obviously known to harness unbelievable power like the prophecies speak of. But why the references to music? I say I don't know, but I can take a guess—I don't think that the three instruments coming together would mean any kind of good, and especially not if they fell into the hands of someone like Ishmael."

There was a knock on the door. Flat and Sharp looked at it, surprised. Who was there?  
"Come in!" called Orca. The door opened, and a man walked in.

"Please say hello to Jean Drake," said Orca. "He is another one of my friends. He works as a postal worker, and does some work with the airways. Please, have a seat, Drake. I presume the reason you're here is because there is another letter from Cornelius, and that is very good news."

"You're right," said Drake. He took out an envelope and opened it, then took out a folded piece of parchment and handed it to Orca. Orca folded it open and read it over.

"Orca,

I'm sure that you've realized, now is of course the perfect time to act. I'm able to meet with the new composers, Flat and Sharp, outside of the temple. I'll presume that you'll be able to give them the flute, so this is how I think it should work. As per the way things go, I'll be sent with a partner to the rendezvous site where I'm to meet with Flat and Sharp. The way that we'll be coming into the Hyrule Castle Town will be from the north road, so we will be going through the forest. While we're amidst the trees, I might be able to catch my partner by surprise and take him out. Then, I want to meet with Jean Drake at the place where the road enters the southern edge of the forest. He can dress up in the Shiekah uniform that I'll take off of my partner, and if nobody looks too closely, it won't look like there's anything suspicious. That's my plan, and everything after that is improvisation—although, I'm sure you can think of something to help out.

Your friend,

Cornelius

Flat and Sharp read over the letter as well, and then Jean Drake.

"Well, Jean?" said Orca. "What do you think of doing a little bit of dangerous work?"

"I did serve in the Hylian Guard for a while," said Jean. "We'd always say, "A Hylian Guard never backs down from danger." Well, I'm not backing down this time, either."

"Well, it sounds good enough," said Orca. "Honestly, I don't think we can do any better. It's a pretty bad situation. The Shiekah are not easy to deal with. However, if this works, we may finally be able to trap them in a corner. Excuse me, Flat and Sharp. I've forgotten to ask if you have any objections to this latest development."

"If we had any, we would never get anywhere," said Flat. "We need to move forward, not back. That is the way composers work."

"You'll make fine composers for the royal family," said Orca, giving them a smile. "Now, how about I send you back up to the Great Fairy? She might be able to do something about that wound on your leg, Flat. Then you can get back to the castle. Let's hope that nobody found out about our little secret meeting here. Oh, and about that man you killed outside—I'll have Jean Drake make sure it appears he was killed by wolves, with no strings attached. He's a little bit of a Jack of all Trades, certainly more than just a postman."


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: The Fall of the Shiekah

Six nights passed, and Flat and Sharp met with Cornelius and Jean Drake (Cornelius had successfully disposed of his partner) beneath a dimly lit street lamp in a back alleyway of the Hyrule Castle Town Market. Sharp gave him the ocarina. "Keep the ocarina," he said. "I'll take the flute." Sharp nodded. He handed over the flute and took back the ocarina.

"Here," whispered Cornelius, handing Sharp a piece of parchment. It had a series of notes on it, and written beneath each note was a letter of the alphabet. "I've made absolutely certain that we haven't been followed. However, Ishmael may have ways of listening in on our conversation even if there's no one here in person. Just to be cautious, we'll "speak" in this code. Do you think you get it? Use the flute to answer yes or no."

Sharp had the flute in a bag at his waist. He took it out and put it to his lips. Then he played the note for Y, the note for E, and the note for S. Cornelius nodded. "You're going to come with me," he said, not using the ocarina. "There's a horse tied to a tree out in the field. I'll blindfold you and take you somewhere, and then you're going to put on a little performance for my master with this ocarina."

"I'm taking you to the Kokiri Forest," he said, using the ocarina to play the notes. "I don't know where we're going after that. We'll probably meet with the guide."

"I understand," replied Sharp.

"Give the flute to Jean," said Cornelius. "Jean, I think when we get to wherever we're going, you should be the one to play Saria's Song. You do remember it, don't you?"

Jean nodded.

"Orca was our music teacher," Cornelius said to Flat and Sharp. "We've memorized most of the songs in the book."

When they reached the forest, they were greeted by a man in a tattered brown cloak. It was the guide that Orca had described to them. "Hello," he said, letting out a dry laugh. "You two must be those composers. Yeah, Ishmael sees something in you. I don't know what, though—you just look like trash. You two, the escorts—I'm going to have to blindfold you guys, too. It's the same way it works going to the temple."

Once all of them were unable to see, they were led into the forest.

Then the blindfolds were taken off, after some amount of time.

And they were standing in a grove, with a tree in the center. The tree was ancient. There were grooves etched into its trunk as though something had dug into it, like a rope. But that had been a long time ago.

They were led past the tree and were taken down a short flight of steps hidden beneath a bush. They led into an underground cave which was lit by torches and had an old wooden stage built on the other wall.

"If you'll pardon me," said Jean, "I need to take a shit."

"What, do you think we want to hear all about it?" asked the guide. "Go on, and make it fast. Ishmael's on his way."

Jean went back up the stairs. He saw a man crouched over in the nearby bushes, fiddling with some sort of mechanism. It was Daron, setting up a trap to make a bomb go off if any unwanted visitors came. "Careful," he said. "Head right between those two trees there and you're safe. Oh, and take your shit over that way somewhere, 'cause there's a wind blowing down from the north and I don't want to be smelling it."

Several minutes later, Ishmael arrived with several guards. "Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats, please," he said. Everyone present sat on the ground except for Flat and Sharp. "Do you like the setting that I chose?" Ishmael asked them. "Those little woodland creatures called the Deku used to put on performances here. I thought it might be nice if there could be one last show, to let this old theater go out with a bang before we burn the forest to the ground. I hope you'll be giving us a lovely performance on that ocarina, boys. Come on, don't be shy. Everyone, let's give some encouragement to these two brothers! It's their first time."

The small crowd clapped and hollered. "Go on! Get up there!" shouted one of the several guards that had accompanied Ishmael. Flat and Sharp went onto the stage. "Bow to your audience," said Ishmael, and they did. "Now," he said. "Play something for us. And make it good."

Cornelius's mind was reeling about what Ishmael had said. _Burn the forest! Is that possible? _He thought about it. The natural magic of the forest would suppress any fire. It was like one gigantic organism and was able to defend itself against almost anything. Ishmael knew that, so what could he hope to gain from setting fire to the forest? _A distraction. _It was the only thing that made sense. A distraction for what? Most likely, a large-scale attack. Ishmael hadn't said anything about this to him and he hadn't heard about it from anyone else, either, but then again it wasn't Ishmael's style to give away information to anyone that it didn't concern directly. He'd probably just informed a select few officers that they would be making such an attack and then put a gag order on it to keep things silent. Either way, something huge was brewing. In his head, he composed a set of possible scenarios that could come from Ishmael's plan and then started coming up with strategies to counter them.

"Hold on," said Ishmael, stopping Sharp before he played a note on the ocarina. "Cornelius, where did that partner of yours go?"

"Well, it's private business," said Cornelius.

"We're not here to make jokes, Cornelius," said Ishmael. "Go out and find him. Unless he's constipated, it doesn't take such a long time to take a shit."

"Yes, Sir," said Cornelius. He got up and left the theater. Ishmael let several seconds pass and then made a gesture to the guide that meant, "Follow him." The guide nodded, and he went up the stairs after Cornelius. Cornelius stopped for a moment in the trees and looked behind him. He caught a glimpse of brown disappear into the trees. "Damn," he said. "Ishmael sent _him." _

Nobody had ever witnessed the guide's fighting abilities, but there were rumors that he was an A-Class assassin. Cornelius hit the ground and moved away, keeping hidden.

The melodious sound of Saria's song came floating through the trees. The guide stopped where he was and looked around him, but couldn't discern where it was coming from. "It's that other one," he said to himself. "They're doing something."

He had no doubts in his ability to stop both of them on his own, but his key mistake was the fact that he did not know how far the sound of Saria's Song was able to carry. In the underground theater, Ishmael and company were unable to hear the notes themselves because of Flat and Sharp playing on the ocarina. They played songs that made the trees dance, songs that made insects gather around them, and many others; among them, Sharp played the Song of Storms, and in answer it began to rain outside, setting a splendid scene for the upcoming battle.

A few miles away, on Death Mountain, little yellow Gorons raised their heads and listened to a wonderful tune flowing through their ears. It traveled down through the canyons below and through a tunnel into the Goron City, as well. It struck well with their musical tastes and made them dance and laugh. One of them rolled down to the lowest floor of the city—which was built as one large cylindrical chamber with numerous rooms branching outwards from there on a series of floors—and banged the big brass knocker on the door of Megaton's quarters. Megaton was the Goron chief.

The door opened, and Megaton stood inside. "What is it?" he bellowed. He always bellowed, since it was difficult for him to talk softly. He was large and intimidating on the surface, but in truth he was a very kindred spirit.

"Listen to this music!" said the Goron that had come to knock on his door. Megaton listened, and heard it. "Whoa!" he boomed with a voice that nearly knocked the little Goron off his feet in front of him. "Hot, hot, HOT! That's dancing music! Let's throw a party!"

He went about dancing and knocking things over in clumsiness when he was suddenly struck with the realization that he had heard this music before. He remembered it specifically because the first time he'd heard it, it had the very same effect on him—that was, making him dance about like a jolly fool and knocking over King Oswald's most precious china vase, which he had to pay for afterwards. "This is Saria's Song," he said.

"What's that, Chief?" asked a nearby Goron as he went spinning by. Megaton didn't respond. Instead, he went back into his room. A moment later, he came out carrying a huge black war hammer. The Gorons looked at him. "What's going on?" one of them asked. Megaton flashed him a smile with his huge teeth. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I just need to go see the king. Keep the party going until I get back, and don't forget to leave me some chips!"

He set off down the mountain and out onto Hyrule Field. As a Goron, he could move incredibly fast by curling into a ball and simply rolling forward. Gorons were thought to be descendents of boulders, since they very much resembled them when they rolled up like that—except that Gorons were yellow and had black spots, and boulders usually didn't. Gorons weren't all that much smarter than boulders, either.

A tall, blond-haired man dressed in a green tunic was riding a beautiful mahogany colored horse across the field when suddenly, a large yellow boulder struck the horse and sent him flying into a nearby ditch with a signature scream that I probably don't even need to describe. When he climbed out of the ditch, soaking wet, the large yellow boulder had disappeared. He scratched his head, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Megaton rolled through the Hyrule Castle Town Market and up the road to the castle. He burst through the closed gate, not even bothering to stop, and the stationed guard ran after him swinging a sword around and yelling at him to halt in his tracks and explain himself. But he kept going. Then, gaining a short burst of speed, he hit an incline in the ground that acted as a ramp and sent him rocketing through the air. "AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!" he screamed as he fell, suddenly realizing that he had gone higher than he had expected to and was afraid of heights. With a thunderous crash, he smashed through the roof of the castle's throne room, right as Frederick and King Oswald were sitting down to have a discussion about a disturbing matter—the disappearance of Flat and Sharp. This time, they had been spotted leaving the castle; but when a guard had gone after them, he'd found nothing but the hoof prints of a horse leading off to the south.

"What the hell!" exclaimed King Oswald, leaping from his chair. He spun around and took down a steel broadsword that hung on the wall above his throne—a family heirloom, but useful to defend himself in an attack. Then he saw that the intruder was Megaton, and he put the sword down. Still, he could not hide his anger. "Good evening, Megaton," he said. "Uh…to what do we owe this pleasant visit of yours?"

"Your Majesty, as we speak, the Gorons are dancing to strange music in Goron City," he said.

"And I'm concerned about this because…"

"The music was Saria's Song," said Megaton. "It was coming into the city through the tunnel that leads into the forest. In order to travel such a distance, the song is surely being played on one of the three instruments, Your Majesty, so I thought the matter might be of concern to you."

"You're right," said Oswald. "It is; because in fact, the royal composers, Flat and Sharp, have gone missing."

"I think it confirms our suspicions that they were captured by the Shiekah," said Frederick. "They must be playing the song to call us to them. We have to act quickly, before the magic of the notes dies away. On average, that takes about an hour from the time the last note is played."

"I'll go into the forest with some Goron warriors," said Megaton. "Send some of your soldiers with me. If I lead them, we won't lose!"

"You sure are full of yourself," said Oswald. "But there's no doubting your abilities as a fighter. My intuition tells me that the Shiekah have captured Flat and Sharp because they want to take possession of the Ocarina of Time. If that's the case, the Shiekah commander Ishmael Bogarth may be there as well. We may not get another chance like this, so we need to send the best we've got."

"That's me!" roared Megaton.

"Yes," said King Oswald. "As a matter of fact, it is. Get ready for battle. Oh, and the ceiling is coming right out of your mining profits. Next time, use the door."

"Orca, there's about fifty humans gathered a little southeast of here," the Great Fairy said. "They're spread out through the forest, hiding."

"It's as I assumed," said Orca. "Ishmael is going all out tonight. Those men are waiting to make an attack on the castle."

"What can we do about it?" asked the Great Fairy.

"I'm going to take a gamble," said Orca. "Tonight may be our chance to chase the Shiekah off the face of the world. I need to make sure we win. So what I'm going do is come out of hiding and go to the king, so we can end this pointless violence for good."

"I can use magic to make you invisible for fifteen minutes," said the Great Fairy. "You can go down the road without those men seeing you if you're fast."

"Do it, then," he said.

And so she did. "Good luck," she said to him as he left.

Fifteen minutes. Orca ran as fast as he could the little over one and a half miles southeast to the castle and made it just as the spell wore off. He was becoming an old man, but he still had some energy left in him. "Who are you?" shouted a guard, coming up to him. He was bathed in the light of a lantern, and the guard gasped. "You're Orca!" he said.

"That's right," said Orca. "And I need to the see the king."

Cornelius was running, slogging through muddy petals and hurtling over bushes. The guide was coming after him. The guide had gone after Jean and there had been a muffled cry; but Cornelius had taken the flute from him before that, and the music was still playing—because, as Frederick had said, it would continue to play for as long as an hour after the final note was struck. Cornelius had to assume the worst about Jean, but he needed to protect himself now. As he ran, he made marks in the trees with a dagger so that he could find his way back to the theater—if he even survived.

Then, suddenly, the guide was in front of him. He just _appeared _there, as though he had been standing there the entire time and Cornelius hadn't seen him. No, it wasn't that. It was probably because the guide was fast, so fast that his movements couldn't be caught by the normal human eye.

Cornelius flipped into the air, narrowly dodging the swing of a sword.

The guide leapt at him, and he could only dodge by throwing himself sideways off the branch. He landed on his left shoulder, and felt a jolt of pain through his arm. The guide's sword cut the branch off of the tree and continued in its momentum, cutting through the tree itself and sending it to the mud as a useless piece of wood. That was no small tree, either.

The guide came back down. Cornelius gathered some mud and rocks in his hand and chucked them into the guide's face when he turned around. The guide stumbled backwards and Cornelius pounced on him, knocking him onto the ground; but he was overpowered easily and pinned onto his back. He felt the guide's arms wrap around his neck, and he was being strangled. There was nothing he could do to break free. He felt himself becoming dizzy and knew that he was about to die.

But he was saved. The guide was struck in the back by a yellow boulder hurtling through the trees. His hands came loose from Cornelius' neck as he was knocked backwards almost ten feet, where he was brought to a stop with a collision of his head and the trunk of a tree acting as the breaks. Megaton stopped rolling and stood up. "Hello," he said. "I seem to have lost my men. Who are you?"

"It's a good thing you got lost," said Cornelius. "You just saved me from certain death. My name's Cornelius. You're Megaton, the Goron chief, is that right?"

"That's right!" he bellowed. "Hey, what about that guy over there? Is he all right? Did I hurt him?"

"Yeah," said Cornelius. "But don't worry. He's one of the Shiekah. You came here because you heard Saria's Song, didn't you?"

"Yes! I've come to rescue Flat and Sharp, the royal composers."

"Well then," said Cornelius, standing up. He felt weak, but he was all right. "You see those marks in the trees?"

"Yes."

"Those will lead us where we want to be. Come on, let's go and end all this, so we can get back in time for dinner."

"I love dinner!" bellowed Megaton.

"That's the spirit," said Cornelius.

They heard something behind them. Cornelius spun around and saw that the guide was no longer where they'd left him. "Damn!" he exclaimed. "That man…"

"He's strong, is he?" asked Megaton. "He'd have to be, if he could get up after getting hit like that. You go on ahead. The other Gorons and the soldiers that I came with probably didn't get lost like I did and were able to find the Shiekah. Go join them. I don't want to hold you back here."

Cornelius ran back the way he had come, and Megaton stayed to face off against the guide. "Come out!" he roared. He saw movement to his left and spun to face in that direction. A brown cloak hit him in the face and fell on the ground. The guide had thrown it as a distraction. Megaton threw a wild punch in a random direction. It was a lucky guess. His fist almost hit the guide, who changed direction at the last moment and danced backwards. Megaton saw the movement. With the insane strength that he was famous for, he pounded the ground with the Megaton Hammer. It created a small crater and sent out a shockwave that knocked the guide off his feet. Megaton grabbed him before he hit the ground and gave him a hard punch in the face. The guide's body went limp. He was dead. "Darn," said Megaton. "I just meant to knock him out. Well, partner, you put up a good fight. It was fun. I'd like to match with you again in the afterlife, if we ever get the chance."

He slung the guide over his shoulder and followed the grooves in the trees.

The Gorons disabled Daron's bomb trap with ease, since there was nobody that was better with bombs than the Gorons—bomb flowers were their special crop, after all. They had followed the sound of the music and it had led them to a dead man on the ground who was lying very near the clearing. After the trap was removed, they stopped and waited in the trees until Megaton returned. "He got lost again," someone remarked. "What a brute."

Cornelius got there first. One of the Hylian soldiers heard him and drew a sword.

"I'm not one of them," said Cornelius. The soldier put the sword away. "You were a hostage of theirs?" he asked.

"Something like that," said Cornelius.

"Did you know that guy?" asked the soldier. He pointed at Jean. Cornelius followed his finger and saw the body of one of his oldest friends lying on the ground. But he couldn't make himself cry. "Yes," he managed to say. "I've…seen him before."

Then Megaton showed up. He went past them at incredible speed, splattering them with a spray of mud. He kept going and finally managed to bring himself to a stop and come back. "Sorry," he said. "Breaks don't work in mud."

"There's a stairway that leads down into a hidden theater just inside this clearing," said Cornelius. "The Shiekah are there. So are Flat and Sharp."

"Let's go in," said Megaton. And so they did.

"You're back!" said Ishmael, when he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "What…" Then he stopped when he saw that the people on the stairway were not who he had expected. Without hesitation, he drew his dragon bone sword and rushed at them. Megaton stepped forward. "I'll fight you," he said. He swung his hammer at Ishmael. There was a harsh clang of metal as it confronted Ishmael's sword in midair. Ishmael swung in the other direction and Megaton curled up, shielding himself with the famous Goron back that was reputedly the only thing they didn't have in common with rocks—that was to say, a rock wasn't nearly as hard as a Goron's back. Ishmael's sword was deflected. Megaton leapt up and struck him with the hammer. At the last second Ishmael twisted his body so that the blow went to his arm. Every bone around his shoulder was destroyed and the force even carried through to crack his ribs. Almost screaming in pain, he moved past Megaton's left side and threw a Deku Nut that blinded everyone in the room. Some of the soldiers on the stairwell felt him pushing past them and tried to grab them, but he threw them off. Then, when they all regained their sight, he was gone.

None of the other Shiekah managed to escape. They were forced against the wall and their hands were tied behind their backs. "You are all under arrest," stated Captain Winston of the Hyrule Police Force, "For the following crimes: First degree manslaughter; mass destruction of public and federal property; for stealing from the royal treasury; and so on. We will interrogate each and every one of you and we have clearance to use torture if we find any discrepancies. You will each be put on trial before the Royal Court and you will have certain rights revoked due to the severity of the crimes you have committed. If there are any among you that are not part of the Shiekah organization or have been forced to partake in the enacting of these crimes against your will, speak now or you will be declared guilty of all aforementioned crimes and we will proceed as I have just described. Do any of you wish to speak?"

Nobody spoke.

"Good job, men," said Winston. "We've secured the safety of Flat and Sharp. I'll accompany the Hylian soldiers that will escort them back to Hyrule Castle. Megaton, would you like to go with your Gorons and look for Ishmael? I don't think he can get far from here with a broken arm and ribcage, and he'll have to leave tracks."

"Gladly," said Megaton. "Oh, by the way," he added. "I left a man outside at the spot where I crashed into a tree. He's one of these lot, but he fought and died honorably against me in battle. Whatever side he chose to fight for, there are few I've ever fought that were as strong as he. I'd like to request that he be given a proper burial. If there are any other casualties among them, I don't care what you do."

"We'll do that," said Winston.

"Thank you. I'll be on my way," said Megaton. "Come on, Gorons. Let's go after that bastard, Ishmael. He interrupted me before I could crush the rest of his bones."

Outside, Jean Drake was lifted onto a thick sheet of fabric to be carried back to the castle. Some other men went to take care of the guide. Cornelius went with them, interested to see what the man looked like. "He'll never hide his face from anyone again," said Winston, and he lifted the hood of the cloak.

Cornelius stood looking at the man's face for a long time.

It was Jean Drake's brother who had disappeared almost twenty years earlier. One day in the forest he had wandered off the path and never come back. Everyone thought the wolves had gotten him, but they never found a body. Finally, Cornelius turned away. "So it goes," he said.

The two brothers were buried next to each other in the Kakariko Village graveyard.

The Shiekan attack on the castle was a failure, thanks to Orca's information. All fifty of the men were washed out of hiding and arrested. Thus, the Shiekah were horribly defeated, for the time. Ishmael managed to evade Megaton and the Gorons and made it back to the Shadow Temple. There, he addressed the remaining twenty or so members of the Shiekah and told them they would be going into temporary retreat. They would make their new headquarters at the ancient temple in the desert wastelands. So, for the next twelve years, the Shiekah disappeared from society. The government never stopped searching for them, but all efforts were fruitless. And then, twelve years later, the witches Koume and Kotake were to come to the Shiekah and help them down the path of the glorious revolution they had always dreamed of…


End file.
